Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is no fudge here. The facts and the figures are published every month on the website. The Deputy can see them. We have engaged with Tipperary County Council on a regular basis and will do that even more, directly with the county manager. I have met the Deputy and his councillors down there twice myself. The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, has been down there too. We want to engage with the Deputy. Tipperary County Council has brought forward a number of plans, over 25 projects, that were not there a year ago and are there now to build houses in the course of 2018 and we want to see that happening and we want to see more of it. We have been very clear umpteen times to all local authority managers, councillors and so on that the money is there to support this activity and we want to do more of it and increase the pipeline. There is a pipeline of projects across the country of over 11,000 houses on 700 sites. We want to at least treble that. That includes Tipperary and we will work with the Deputy on that.

In respect of the voids, in case the Deputy has any doubts, over 7,000 voids were brought back into use before 2017. By the end of 2017, over 8,400 houses that were empty and unused - social houses - will be back in use. It is good progress. It should never have happened in the first place but we are bringing them back into play. It is taxpayers' money well spent bringing them back into use. That is the figure. It is factual. We do not make the figures up. They are there for the Deputy to track every month.

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